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“With Malice Towards None”
A Nation Torn and One Man’s Dream to Heal It
By: Trevor Johnson
Critical Inquiry: The Presidential Campaign of 2016
Radford University
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“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure,
permanently, half slave and half free.”- Abraham Lincoln
The year is 1865 and the United States is coming to the end of the bloodiest war the
nation has ever seen. The American Civil War was a terrible war fought between country men to
country men, friend to friend, and brother to brother. The United States was torn asunder with the
succession of the American South and the formation of the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln was
at the head of it all. He had just won reelection in a landslide, and as the leader that had been
leading to save the nation. He now had an impending union victory and a tough road ahead to
rebuild the great nation. This second inaugural address comes at a time where the nation needs to
look towards the future and try and fix the bonds and ties that had been severed by this Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln on the steps of the newly finished Capital Building stands before the
confederate states. He stands before the world and states that now is the time to bind up our
nation and to “hold malice towards none”. Lincoln talks about how God used this war to show
the north and the south the error of their ways and how the nations had allowed the evils of
slavery to exist from its very humble roots. He tells the country that as a nation the south will not
be punished for their succession from the union. The country needs to learn to forgive their
fellow man just as God forgives all of their sins, because if the United States truly wants to be
united you cannot be the very polar opposite of that which is divided. This war has no winners
because every single American, north or south, has felt the unbearable torment of this terrible
conflict. Lincoln does an amazing job of rallying the nation as a whole, and he does so with
humbleness and love towards all of American and all her citizens, he does so by calling upon
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religious elements, invoking Biblical references to show how this was God judgement of the
entire nation; he also reiterates time and time again to the American people that there will not be
any hatred or any type of punishment towards anyone in the south and that the nation, as a
family, must and will show forgiveness to all.
As the Civil War comes to an end Lincoln is reelected to the presidency for a second
term. This is a pivotal in the history of America. Lincoln’s first four years of presidency was one
of the hardest any president has come encounter with, the Civil War has been the bloodiest four
years the nation has ever seen. Now as he is about to retake the sacred oath of the presidency
Lincoln talks to the entire nation as a whole about the road to recovery and the road to an even
stronger United States. Lincoln publicly addresses not only the people in the Union but, also the
